Stephan  Crump on acoustic bass, Liberty Ellman on acoustic guitar, and Jamie Fox on electric guitar. Stephan Crump's Rosetta Trio released its acclaimed fourth album Outliers this February. After fifteen years of collaboration, Rosetta Trio charts new territories of shape and  feel on its new album, Outliers, available now on Papillon Sounds. 

“...a low-key  marvel...melodies and harmonies that seem equally alluring and askew...bracing improvisation..a strangely intuitive group  dynamic...selfless and deceptively effortless.” - JazzTimes 

Best known for his dynamic founding role in the Vijay Iyer Trio,  Memphis-bred, Grammy-nominated, Brooklynite bassist/composer Stephan Crump leads his own uniquely colorful and hard-grooving all-string Rosetta Trio, featuring guitarists Liberty Ellman and Jamie Fox. Hailed as “a string ensemble for the new century” by All About Jazz, the group formed in 2005 to record an album of pieces written in the aftermath of 9/11. That album, Rosetta, was greeted with inclusion on multiple top ten lists and ecstatic reviews for its narrative depth and outstanding performances. Their second release, Reclamation (2010), “ingenious originals” (The New Yorker), “bareness in emotion” (NPR), was much more than a follow-up effort, though it was the earlier album that gave the  trio its name and its mission: to inhabit the dynamic and rhythmic  flexibility of a drumless ensemble and embrace its challenges and  expanded responsibilities; to reject restrictions of genre; to explore different territories of feel, texture, color; to groove. With Thwirl  (2013) “a declaration of increased proportions, a culmination of  superior interplay, chemistry, delicacy and vision” (Downbeat), the  group revealed a new telepathy. Rosetta Trio, whose members have for years collaborated with many of the leading lights in the New York  creative music scene, has developed into a formidable unit, sensitively and powerfully rendering Crump’s often profound, sometimes playful and  always honest music.

This is a uniquely colorful and grooving  all-string trio with deep chemistry. Audience response to the trio’s  concerts is always powerful…they are moved by the music as well as the  special rapport and interplay of the band. 

​

"Led by Crump on acoustic bass, the Rosetta trio is a “string ensemble for the new century” (Donald Elfman, All About Jazz), with Liberty Ellman on acoustic guitar and Jamie Fox on electric guitar. The lack of drums is unexpected, and the ensemble embraces the rhythmic flexibility and challenges it presents. The result is a sound that sits within the liminal space of jazz, avantgarde, and contemporary folk." - Earshot Jazz

“As a bassist and composer, Mr. Crump avoids obvious routes but manages never to lose his way” -  The New York Times 

“strikingly fresh and unobvious compositions…an impressive and original voice” -  The Wire 

​

“categories cease to matter” -  JazzTimes 

​

“astonishingly beautiful playing” -  London Jazz News 

​

“Crump’s music is original” -  Downbeat